- Ruby Franke’s oldest children spoke out against their experience living life on camera
- Her daughter Shari referred to family vlogging as unethical
- Her son Chad made it clear that he would not be following in his mother’s footsteps with a vlogging channel
Ruby Franke’s children are distancing themselves from her family vlogging — with no intention of following in her footsteps.
On Monday, March 31, the disgraced former parenting YouTuber’s eldest son and daughter, Shari Franke and Chad Franke, spoke with Good Morning America about the nature of vlogging with children. Chad specifically said that he won’t subject his own family to cameras when the time comes.
“I mean, Ruby clearly would slap us, flick our lips, whatever. I think Jodi [Hildebrandt, the family’s therapist] brought out the worst in her, and that’s how it got to where it ended up,” Shari said, adding, “I do think that family vlogging and family content is unethical.”
Chad, 20, added that he sees a family in his future, but not vlogging. “I eventually want to have a family, and I’ve learned from my mom’s mistakes,” he said. “We’re shutting off social media, shutting off the cameras. I’m not going to be using any kid as an employee.”
GMA3’s Eva Pilgrim reported that the children are “focused on moving on without Ruby.”
As previously reported, Ruby and Hildebrandt, were arrested in 2023 after her 12-year-old son escaped from Hildebrandt’s home in Ivins, Utah and asked a neighbor to call the police. Authorities soon discovered that both the boy and Ruby’s 10-year-old daughter had been abused; she and Hildebrandt pleaded guilty to multiple counts of aggravated child abuse.
In February 2024, they each received four separate prison sentences for 1 to 15 years, which will run consecutively.
Last week, a Utah judge signed off on Ruby and Kevin Franke’s divorce, giving Kevin — who shares six children with his ex-wife — full custody of their four children who are still minors.
As for the couple’s eldest children, Shari released her book, The House of My Mother: A Daughter’s Quest for Freedom, via Gallery Books on Jan. 7. The release details her experiences in the Franke house growing up — where her family launched the 8Passengers YouTube channel in 2015. The account eventually earned 2.5 million subscribers. The family’s story was also detailed in the Hulu three-part docuseries, Devil in the Family: The Fall of Ruby Franke, which released in February.
Franke’s high-profile child abuse case was soon followed by a new law in Utah protecting the children of online personalities. On March 25, Gov. Spencer Cox signed a law that gives adults the opportunity to erase any content of them as minors from social media, NBC News reported last week. The law also obliges parents to set money aside for children who appear on the internet.
Kevin testified in February at a House committee in support of the legislation.
“Children cannot give informed consent to be filmed on social media, period,” he said in a statement, per the Salt Lake Tribune. “If we, as adults, cannot understand the emotional and psychological impacts of sharing our lives to millions of strangers online, how can we expect our children to understand them?”
